Rs 7,850 crore proposed for water department

The state government has proposed allocating Rs 7,850 crore to the water resources department, up by Rs 600 crore compared to the previous year.

This will include assistance from the Centre under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PKSY) for the completion of seven major irrigation projects in the state.

State finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar has made a provision of Rs 7,272 crore for irrigation works for the year 2015-16.

Mr Mungantiwar said he had provided 100 per cent fund to the department as proposed in his previous budget. He said projects that would yield immediate benefit to farmers had been given priority.

“It will help the state to complete 28 irrigation projects and will create additional water storage of 770 million cubic metre (mcm) with 1.68 lakh hectares of land coming under irrigation,” said Mr Mungantiwar.

Last year, Rs 938 crore had been made available for seven projects, namely Waghur, Bavanthadi, Lower Dudhana, Tillari, Lower Wardha, Lower Panhjara and Nandur Madhmeshwar phase II. This year, Mr Mungantiwar proposed an outlay of Rs 2,078 crore for these projects. “These seven projects are included under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana and hence, maximum share will be provided by the Central government,” said Girish Mahajan, minister for water resources.

Former CM Prithviraj Chavan, however, criticised the allocation saying that Union finance minister Arun Jaitley had made a provision of Rs 5,700 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana for the whole country.

“Maharashtra will get a meagre share from it and it will take time to complete even the last-mile irrigation projects, including the seven from the state.”

He further said that during the UPA government, Maharashtra had received '1,500 crore under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Program (AIBP) which BJP had renamed as Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana.

Meanwhile, Mr Mungantiwar said, “It is the need of the hour to promote water literacy and spread water awareness among all sections of the society which will help proper planning for use of every drop of water. With this view, a permanent water centre will be set up at Yashada, Pune, with a sub-centre at Forest Academy, Chandrapur, WALMI Aurangabad, and Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Administrative Training Academy, Amravati.” “Courses and training programmes related to water literacy and water awareness will be taken up regularly at these centres and subcentres,” he added.